Friday, June 22, 2012

2012 Queer Film Blogathon: Different for Girls (1996)

This essay is
Thrilling Days of Yesteryear’s contribution
to the Queer Film Blogathon being jointly hosted by Garbo Laughs andPussy Goes Grrrfrom June 18-22. For a complete list of participants and the
movies and/or topics discussed, click here.

Kim Foyle (Steven Mackintosh) is taking a taxi to her job at
a greeting card company when her cabbie collides with a dispatch messenger and
his motorcycle, sending the man to the pavement. The only thing that seems to be injured is
his pride, but both he and the cab driver exchange a few heated words before
the messenger, Paul Prentice (Rupert Graves), asks Kim to intervene. Kim, noticeably nervous about the incident,
hurries off because she doesn’t want to get involved.

The reason for Kim’s reticence is that she recognizes Prentice
as her best friend from an English boarding school…when he himself was “Karl”
Foyle, and before he underwent sexual reassignment surgery to become a
woman. (We get a preview of their past
friendship during the opening credits sequence, when Karl is taunted by bullies
while taking a shower and Paul comes to his defense.) Upon finishing her workday, Kim is stunned to
find Prentice waiting for her outside the company…he’s figured out where he
knows her from. Their reunion is
awkward, but they decide to “make a date” to catch up on old times.

Awkward is very much the watchword in the couple’s efforts
to reestablish their friendship. The
date at a restaurant is painfully uncomfortable, and a second encounter at a
music club doesn’t go quite as smooth, either—the hotheaded Prentice manages to
tick off some hoodlums at the bar…forcing him and Kim to make a
skin-of-their-teeth exit.

But the bad date to end all bad dates occurs when Kim
invites Prentice over to her flat for dinner…where he reveals that he’s been
reading up on the subject of transgender and transsexuality in an effort to
understand Kim better, with whom he’s becoming quite fond beyond the initial
curiosity and protectiveness. A
discussion about the subject leads to an incident where the inebriated Paul
storms out of her apartment building and whips out the old one-eyed trouser
snake in public, which brings the police by and gets Prentice arrested for
indecent exposure. When Kim places a
hand on one of the officers’ shoulders to try and convince them not to arrest
Paul, she is charged with obstructing an arrest. Thrown into the back of a police van, one of
the cops (Rick Warden) isn’t quite sure what to make of Kim (he thinks “he’s” a
transvestite) and puts his hand up her skirt expecting to find evidence proving
him right. This prompts Prentice to intervene
and stop the groping gendarme…and he receives a beating in the process.

Paul is also charged with assaulting that same officer, and
is depending on Kim to back up his story that it was the officer who was
responsible…Kim, having endured enough personal pain and embarrassment to last
several lifetimes, is hesitant to become involved and would prefer that the
matter simply go away. She arranges to
stay at her sister’s (Saskia Reeves) in the meantime to avoid a meeting with
Prentice’s solicitor (Lia Williams)…but gradually agrees to do the courageous
thing and testify on Paul’s behalf.
Despite all the bumps and bad patches in their courtship, both of them
realize that they are emotionally and sexually compatible with one another (“It
fits! It bloody fits!”)…and by the end
of Different for Girls
(1996), the two are involved in a lovably quirky partnership, described by Kim
during her testimony at Prentice’s trial: “Our relationship doesn’t have a
precise nature—it never will…all I know is, I don’t know how I’ve done without
him.”

Different for Girls,
with a title inspired by the classic Joe Jackson song (heard on the film’s
soundtrack), gets my vote for one of the most unconventional romantic comedies
I’ve seen in the past twenty years. I
came across it a few years back on one of my cable system’s On Demand channels,
and found it thoroughly captivating.
Much of the credit for this goes to actor Steven Mackintosh, who is able
to overcome what many would consider “stunt casting” with a wonderful, finely modulated
performance as Kim. Jeered and bullied for
being effeminate when he was a young man, her determined attempt to make for
herself a new life is turned topsy-turvy when “old mate” Paul Prentice suddenly
pops back into her life by accident (via an accident). The two of them are a study in contrasts: Kim
is shy and reserved, never needing nor wanting to be the center of attention;
while Paul is boisterous and irresponsible (there’s a running gag through out
the film in which the motorcycle he uses in his line of work is repeatedly in
the process of being repossessed by the finance company). Rupert Graves, as Prentice, struggles a bit
with his role as first because he comes across as so obnoxious in the early
scenes of the film you question why Kim would have anything to do with him in
the first place.

But it doesn’t take long to see that there is much good in
Paul; there’s a lovely sequence where he and Kim have gone back to his flat
after the scene at the music club, where they decide to listen to records as they
did in the old days. The two of them end
up dancing to Another Girl, Another
Planet (by The Only Ones), in a completely captivating scene. Paul later teaches Kim how to ride a
motorcycle, which provides some nice light laughs, and another amusing highlight
occurs the morning after the disastrous “first date” when Prentice, clad in his
work leathers, stops by Kim’s office at the greeting card company with a
bouquet of flowers to apologize for his boorish behavior the night before. (This results in some stares and tongue-wagging
from Kim’s co-workers and her boss—played by veteran character great Miriam
Margoyles—who had written their fellow worker off as some sort of wallflower.)

Despite its Cinderella-like romantic comedy trappings, Different for Girls makes an
interesting relationship palatable for those who might be put off by the
subject matter while ensuring every effort to distinguish the difference
between transsexualism and transvestism/homosexuality, succeeding admirably on
all counts. The only problem I have with
the film concerns the subplot involving sister Jane (Reeves) and her soldier husband
Neil (Neil Dudgeon), who because of his infertility allowed his wife to have a
son with another man. The script by Tony
Marchant seems to want to suggest in a ham-handed fashion that the anguish Neil
is experiencing about his inadequate seed is comparable to Kim’s gender
reassignment; but it comes across every bit as awkward as Paul and Kim’s early
courtship dilemmas, and I think the film might have been improved by
eliminating that entirely. But Marchant
has a nice ear for dialogue, and Girls contains some wonderfully quotable
lines; my favorite occurs at the end of Kim’s testimony when she informs the prosecuting
solicitor (Edward Tudor-Pole): “By the way—I may have had certain things
removed during surgery, but my eyesight wasn’t one of them…and I know what I
saw after he was arrested.”

Directed by Richard Spence, Different for Girls also features a soundtrack with an eclectic performers lineup including Kool Moe Dee and Desmond Dekker and the
Aces. It’s beguiling, and incredibly
well-acted…with major props to Mackintosh for his understated performance (he
never hits a false note), and a round of cheers for Graves, Margoyles, Reeves
and Charlotte Coleman as Kim’s scheming co-worker—a young actress (you might
recognize her as the gal who shacked up with Hugh Grant in Four Weddings and a Funeral) who left us far too soon. It’s also a permanent part of my DVD library…though
earlier this week I thought I was going to have to call an audible for the
Queerathon when I misplaced the darn thing.
(Fortunately I ordered a hard target search of my boudoir and found it
with seconds to spare.) Check it out and
see if you’re not as taken with it as I was.

9 comments:

I was able to see this theatrically back when it was first released. Great performance by Steven Mackintosh. It especially is remarkable when most filmmakers cheat in having a transexual woman portrayed by a woman, such as Transamerica, even though I do love Felicity Huffman,

Ivan, I've heard of this movie but never been able to locate it, so I appreciated learning so much about it from your post. I'm a big fan of British movies and TV and recognized many names of the cast members. I first saw Rupert Graves back in "A Room with a View." He was also in "Maurice" as the gay young gardener who seduces James Wilby. He still appears regularly on British TV, recently playing the Inspector Lestrade role in the updated "Sherlock." I also know Steven Macintosh, a wonderfully talented performer who has been acting since his teens He played a sexually ambiguous punk rocker in the "Buddha of Suburbia" mini-series a number of years back and has given many memorable performances since. He's in a new mini-series that just started this week on BBC America. So good to hear more about this intriguing movie and its sensitive depiction of a difficult subject.

This film sounds really refreshing: a love story between a cisgender man and a transgender woman that doesn't somehow end tragically! I haven't heard much of this one before (hard to know if I recognize the title from the film or the song), but I will definitely be checking it out. Thanks so much for contributing this, Ivan!

@R. D. Finch: if you have Netflix, Different For Girls is available on streaming. I don't believe it was ever on DVD in Region 1 (and believe me, I looked).

@Ivan: This is a pretty good review, and you didn't even mention the Buzzcocks. For the most part, I don't see what Kim sees in Paul, but what can you do? It's in the script. I have some quibbles with the awkwardness of some of your terminology, but nothing that greatly bothers me.

At first reading your review, I Ivan, I didn't realize I'd seen this film a while back. But then something rang a bell and I said, wait a sec' I saw this. (Well how many films on this subject could there be?)

Great review! I have never seen this before, but I really want to check it out now. Sometimes it seems like we're a lightyear away from seeing a cinematic romance like this that doesn't end in a death, so it's encouraging to know it's already been done -- it just needs to keep happening!

Richard Spence also directed some episodes of the Poirot series, which I know because he directed one of my favorites, "Adventure of the Western Star."

EAsily the best portrayal of a transwoman that I have seen to this point.Made more realistic by the Oscar (yes, you heard me) caliber performance of Steven Mackintosh.The first film to "get it right" (so says the middle-aged pot-op transwoman).What's so cool is how many folks I know who have seen it clearly feel that there was much more to the main character's story as the film ends.Recently Hollywood has been looking for properties for TV series that are trans related. I think they couldn't do much better then with an upgrade of this film.